Manus Island: why would they choose to stay?0:56

Over a week after all power, water and food supplies were cut off, hundreds of refugees are still 'squatting' in the detention centre under dangerously unhygienic conditions.

November 10th 2017

a year ago

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A dying asylum seeker has been brought to Australia from Nauru. Picture: AAPSource:AAP

The Australian government has brought a dying asylum seeker from Nauru to Brisbane for palliative care - buckling in the face of growing outrage.

The asylum seeker, identified in media reports as a 63-year-old Hazara father named Ali, is believed to have only months or weeks to live as he fights aggressive lung cancer.

The Hazara are a persecuted ethnic group from Afghanistan.

The 63-year-old belonged to a persecuted ethnic group from Afghanistan.
Picture: AAPSource:AAP

More than 2000 doctors, numerous organisations and thousands of Australians petitioned the government to bring Ali to Australia after it was reported the Department of Home Affairs wanted him to be flown to Taiwan for palliative care.

Australian Medical Association president Tony Bartone, on Tuesday, said Ali needed to come to Australia because “there is no Hazara community in Taiwan, he has no friends or family there, no-one to translate from his language, and no one to perform the Shia Muslim rituals after his death”.